ECH22076 - Contract Settlements: SAFE - How Payments on Account are Allocated
Payments on account are normally received in advance of a
settlement charge being raised. Before the payments can be entered
on SAFE a customer account, with a unique SAFE Customer reference,
must be created by the SAFE nominee. Payment is then sent with a
PS2 payslip quoting the SAFE customer reference to Accounts Office,
Shipley.
Payments on account (POA) are held on the customer’s
account and remain there unallocated until a charge is raised. The
SAFE nominee can view them by selecting “View Customer
Account”. SAFE is designed to expect payment of a charge in
30 days so payments on account are only allocated to a charge 30
days before the due date.
Where a charge is raised on receipt of a payment of account
and the payment is sent to the Accounts Office quoting the charge
reference the payment on account will be allocated to that specific
charge.
Where a payment on account of an employer compliance (EC)
settlement is received it will normally remain unallocated in the
customer’s SAFE account until the settlement charge has been
raised. However, exceptionally, if there are other charges in SAFE,
an automatic process will allocate the POA to the charge with the
earliest due date.
Other EC charges can arise without the caseworker’s
knowledge. For example ECS and CISR automated penalties cut across
to SAFE and PSA charges raised clerically and collected via SAFE.
Where
exceptionally a POA may be set against another
charge a “clearing lock” can be set to prevent it being
automatically allocated to a non-settlement charge
ECH22077.
Caseworkers will need to routinely monitor unallocated POAs
on SAFE to ensure they are still available to set against the
settlement charge before they raise the charge.
EC Settlements and PSA Charges
PAYE Settlement Agreements (PSA) are collected via SAFE so EC staff will also need to
- check the PSA position with the officer responsible for raising the PSA charge.
If an EC POA is received before the PSA charge is paid you must
- lock the POA using the stencil.
